


Fool Me Once

by Dusty_Forgotten



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-16
Updated: 2016-01-22
Packaged: 2018-01-12 15:02:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 4,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1189554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dusty_Forgotten/pseuds/Dusty_Forgotten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Dragonborn is not only a Khajiit, but in Thalmor custody- and, for some diabolical reason, she refuses to speak to anyone but Ondolemar.</p><p>It goes downhill from there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Several Months Prior

**Author's Note:**

> I received a comment pointing out a factual error in this fic, and subjected myself to the horror of reading my own work from years ago. Instead of fixing a small error, I ended up rewriting the whole thing.

Khajiit, but not quite. Possibly a different breed- he’d heard of those. She was notably undersized (the females of the species often were), identifiable by grey fur so light it bordered white, black stripes, and eyes white ‘til the pupils.

“Striking, isn’t she?” Ondolemar mentioned as he looked in on the captive.

“Unnerving.” the door guard noted.

He’d have to agree. The uncanny valley between man and beast, maybe. Unfortunate, that. He observed the cat as she glanced about the stone cell and raised a brow, like a noble finding the lodgings distasteful. “Where was she intercepted?”

“Lurking about the embassy, sir.”

“Alone?”

“Correct.”

He rolled his eyes and closed the fresh journal in his hand. “A petty thief, obviously. Why bother me with this?”

 

“You realize I can hear you, right?” Her accent bothered him- Cyrodiilic overpoweringly, a hint of Skyrim on the  _ A _ . She spoke like she’d never been to Elsweyr. 

The two Thalmor exchanged a glance. That door was intended to be soundproof. 

The guard disclosed, “ _ That _ would be why, sir.”

Without another word for the snide subordinate, Ondolemar entered the room. The Khajiit looked him over apathetically. “Interrogator. Lovely...”

He strode forward, imposing on her with a far superior height. “What brings you to the Thalmor embassy?”

She blinked, black lashes flashing over white eyes. “The guards, I’d say.”

“Quaint.” he grimaced, smoothing his robe before being seated. “I’ll only say that once.”

“I should hope so, after all I hear about superior altmer intellect.” She tucked her bound ankles over the slat between chair legs and let her knees fall together to the left side. That couldn’t be comfortable. “Sounds like overcompensating.”

Ondolemar carefully opened the soon-to-be dossier, setting out a quill and ink. If he was infuriated, the average observer would be none the wiser. He dipped, and began, “What is your name?”

“Alira.” she answered easily enough.

“Of?”

A dainty shrug; she turned her head to the side as she did, like a model for a sculptor. “Here and there. Wherever.”

“Point of origin?”

“Little property in the Pale.”

He eyed her unsurely. She didn’t sound like it. “Do you have family?”

“No.”

“A permanent residence?”

“No.”

“A place of employment?”

“I do what people tell me.”

He glanced up at her then, and let the words roll around in his head. The Khajiit- Alira- smiled kindly.

Ondolemar proceeded from basic information. “For what reason were you trespassing on Thalmor property?”

The smile held, and white eyes held his. “Curiosity killed the cat.”

“It does indeed...” he couldn’t help but mutter. Moving on quickly, he pressed, “Were you alone?”

“For once.”

“How long were you skulking about?”

“Not long enough to worry your little pointy ears. Really, I’ve done nothing against the Dominion, and I’m offended to be arrested in the first place. What cause do you have?”

Ondolemar didn’t glance up from the dossier where he shorthanded notes on a projected sense of power. “Suspicion.”

She sounded very entitled to reply, “You can’t hold me.”

Ondolemar smiled to himself before folding his hands on the table and making it very clear what she was in for. “We can do whatever we’d like.”

The cat blinked, and smiled her own. “I was being literal.”

The exposed feline fangs of her grin distracted him from her lifted hands, the strip of singed leather holding them together- until it snapped. She took a spell in either hand, and launched one at him. It burst green before his eyes, around him, and then she was taking the mace from his belt- which didn’t bother him at the time- and cleaving it into the door guard’s skull. The spell placated him, kept him untroubled and immovable.

She said goodbye, though- and he regrets to admit, he wished her a pleasant day.


	2. Day One

“Ondolemar! Finally!” Elenwen ushered him along hastily; he didn’t have enough time to thank her for inviting him back to the Embassy. “You are integral to this operation, Ondolemar, it simply cannot go on without you.”

This came as a surprise to Ondolemar, who had spent his last several weeks staking out a shrine in the middle of nowhere. “What will I be doing, madam?”

“Questioning. We’ve apprehended the DragonBorn.”

“ _Dragonborn?_ ” he emphasized. Of course he knew a Dragonborn had been summoned (he’s quite sure his mother back in Alinor heard) but for the Thalmor to take such a person into custody was a feat- one they were capable of, naturally.

“Indeed.” Elenwen continued. A pair of battlemages sidestepped to allow Elenwen and her accompaniment passage. “We know very little about her, in all honesty.”

“A woman?”

“Yes.” Elenwen snapped back. He decided to keep any expletives internal from that point forth. “She’s been spotted everywhere we have agents, and was named Thane of Whiterun for her assistance with a dragon attack there. On her person at time of arrest was a charter for a property in Falkreath Hold. We’ve already investigated it, and found only an assortment of building supplies and a chest of dragon scales.”

She turned on her heel when they reached a sturdy door, and handed him a dossier. “I wish I had more to tell you, but she refuses to speak to anyone but you.”

A man of his word, Ondolemar did not verbalize his shock, though his eyebrows shot up. He’d most recently used his interrogation training to individually harass the citizens of a Whiterun farmstead.

Elenwen slotted a key in the door, and looked to him one last time. “Be careful, Ondolemar. If this truly is the Dragonborn, she possesses more power than you can fathom. We already lost too many capturing her.”

With that pep-talk, she swung the heavy door open, positioning herself safely behind it. Ondolemar held the book to his chest, and stepped inside.

The room was windowless, with a single goat-horn chandelier to illuminate the stonework walls. He was faced with a justiciar’s back, one hand on an elven sword at the hip, coiled to subdue this DragonBorn seated before him, should she wrest from her bonds.

The Thalmor glazed the dossier, rueful he hadn’t the time to do so beforehand. He was met with his own handwriting. Ondolemar snapped the journal shut, and took measured steps circumventing the table.

Alira smiled as he came into view.

She hadn’t aged a day- but he hadn’t aged a year, so he hadn’t expected much to change. A scar, perhaps. She was gagged for his protection, but one very well couldn’t conduct an investigation in that state. He supposed she would have called him for a reason, and prayed it wasn’t vengeance. Ondolemar nodded to the justiciar, who obeyed orders, though his muscles were tense with the effort to overcome instincts otherwise.

The Khajiit yawned in a very feline way (much to the worry of the justiciar) before settling snow-white eyes on him. “Ondolemar, slightly less insufferable than every other justiciar I’ve had the misfortune of interacting with. Good to see you.”

He started lamely, “You’re the Dragonborn?”

She giggled, growing distracted by the lamplight. “ **VEN** **!** ” she emitted, and the candles died under the force of more air than lungs could hold. She giggled as the room plunged into darkness.

A sword unsheathed. “Your orders, sir?”

He suppressed a sigh. “Put it back.”

“Sir?” the justiciar requested.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Alira mused, “I quite prefer the dark.”

Very gently, he pressed, “Alira.”

She sighed disappointedly. “ **YOL!** ”

A jet of flame burst over his head- the chandelier, ceiling, half the room. It caught the candles ablaze, and torched an errant cobweb, as well.

He got the shaking under control while he rearranged his stationary. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

He saw the justiciar swallow, and though his eyes stayed forward, Ondolemar knew the look of utter disbelief was meant for the Dragonborn; it certainly wasn’t intended for the particular brick he had it pointed at.

Moving the inkwell to the other side of the dossier for the fourth time, Ondolemar glanced at his captive. She smiled patiently. He put the inkwell back.

“When did you realize you were Dragonborn?” he forced out.

She looked up- recalling or admiring the scorch marks. “When I was fourteen, and jumped off the roof insisting I could fly.”

In any other situation, he would have chuckled. The Aldmeri agent jotted it down verbatim in the pause.

Alira blinked. “For the eighteenth time.

“I stole coins as a child. My father encouraged it, of course, he was a member of the Thieves’ Guild. I never spent them, just put them in a chest in my room, with the stones I pried out of my mother’s jewellry.”

Father, Thieves’ Guild: that could be useful. She was a narcissist, which made this easier for him: she loved to talk about herself. He gave her a glance to show he was still listening. “It wasn’t until I absorbed Mirmulnir’s soul that I learned the word for it.” She leaned forward as far as her wrists shackled to the chair would allow, and said the word like one would introduce the name of their firstborn. “Dovahkiin.”

Ondolemar dipped the quill. “Was that your first encounter with a dragon?”

“No. Helgen. I’m sure you’ve heard all about that.”

“What do you know of the incident at Helgen?”

“That both Ulfric and I were very lucky to make it out.”

“Any insight on the cause of the attack?”

“Yes.” He afforded his full attention for this. “I don’t think dragons like the Empire very much.”

Sarcasm- you could see it in her eyes. Ondolemar rolled his as she prattled on, “I’d have thought they wouldn’t care for humans, since that Dragon War business. Maybe they like Ulfric for his Voice...”

The Thalmor put his quill on the table and folded his hands.

“They don’t give _me_ the same courtesy, and I’m closer related than a Nord who spent a few years living on a mountain. I wonder if dragons are territorial...”

He exchanged a glance with the watching guard, who dutifully watched the wall. “Are you being recalcitrant?”

The cat shifted back in the chair, and he could imagine her steepling fingers. “Indubitably.”

Ondolemar nodded to the justiciar, who maneuvered the cloth back into her mouth. She wrinkled her nose, but hummed a jaunty tune to herself.


	3. Day Two

The agent took a breath the steel himself before entering the second time. He spied Alira’s tail swishing across the floor from between the justiciar’s feet, then kept his eyes to himself until he was seated. He nodded, and she was ungagged. “Ah, Slightly-Less-Insufferable, good to see you. How’ve you been? Keeping busy?”

He didn’t respond. She didn’t need him to.

“I should hope so; at least one of us should. I’ve been trying to remember the words to Shouts, but I simply can’t recall the order.  **STRUN** QO BAH!”

Ondolemar ducked instinctively, and held for a moment. Under the table, he gazed her tail swaying self-satisfied, and rose. The justiciar held the gag up questioningly, but he shook his head. She had the soul of a dragon; if she wanted to injure him, he had no doubt she would find the words.

“No, no... it was  **STRUN BAH QO!** ”

He and the guard glanced the room, after ensuring they were each bodily unharmed. Magicka-draining cuffs in place, walls intact, and nobody was on fire. Rain fell dimly- must have been strong to be heard in such an interior room- and thunder crashed shortly after.

“Yes, that was it, wasn’t it?” the cat mused lightly. “Storm Call.”

“Impressive.” Ondolemar confessed. She was showing off, inciting fear. He couldn’t let her think it was working. Besides, if she could free herself, she would have.

“I hope none of your agents are outside,” the DragonBorn said in a way that made it clear her hope was the opposite, “they’ll be struck.”

Thunder crashed very close indeed, but he was too tense to flinch. Ondolemar opened her dossier. “You have contact with the Blades, I hear.”

“Yes, unfortunately.”

“You don’t care for them?”

“They’re dragonslayers. I dislike them on principle.”

That gave him leverage. “If you’d like them eradicated, that’s something I could help with.”

Alira appeared very amused by his funny little thinking. Thunder cracked ominously. “If I wanted it so, I would have done it myself. They’re useful, though. Delphine points out dragon burial mounds-”

“Delphine?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know about Delphine.”

The Dominion might. He hadn’t been briefed. “Remind me.”

“Vile woman, paranoiac, demanding, walks irritatingly slowly. She’s the only one I’m acquainted with.”

“So there are others?”

“I can’t say.” Alira jested, then conceded. “She hasn’t mentioned. As I said, paranoiac. Possibly justified...” She glared over her shoulder at the guard, who swallowed tightly. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she severs ties with me after this. Actually, you may have done me a favour.”

“Where do you meet with Delphine?” he directed.

“Here, there. Crypts, towns, sewer tunnels. I truly don’t remember any specifics; I have better things to keep track of. Like the words to Drain Vitality, whatever were those...?”

“Could you provide me a physical description?”

“She was fair-skinned, may have been blonde? Rather nondescript.”

“Do you have any other information on Delphine?”

The DragonBorn cocked her head, and looked at him witheringly. “Really, you semi-sufferable snob, I can’t give you any information, because she has given me even less.”

He was inclined to believe her. That sounded like the Blades, anyway. “Do you know anything else about the Blades?”

“None I’ll be sharing. Oh, I remember! It was  **GAAN LA-** ”

The guard yanked the cloth into her mouth, and though muffled, Alira laughed.


	4. Day Three

Ondolemar hadn’t spoken.

“The Battle-Borns are a bit pretentious, good hosts, but full of their wealth, while the Gray-Manes are more a simple folk. They think you’ve abducted their son- which I told the woman is ridiculous, and now here I sit...”

The entire morning, he hadn’t uttered a word.

“In Windhelm, there are the Shatter-Shields- farmers, I believe, however you maintain crops in Eastmarch. They lost their daughters, recently- two of them- and I happen to know for a fact the Dark Brotherhood was involved with at least one of those.”

He’d nodded in the beginning, but for hours now, nothing.

“Of course there are the Black-Briars. I’m sure you’ve heard of them, difficult to avoid. Her son asked me to steal a horse from his mother, and murder his ex-girlfriend, then flirted with me- all from a jail cell. I have never met a man so entitled, and I’ve met Ulfric Stormcloak.”

“What do you know of the dragons?” Ondolemar interrupted, face in his hand.

Alira seemed shocked to find she wasn’t alone in the room. “How to kill them.”

“What do you know of the dragons returning?”

The DragonBorn took a long breath, and began to sing. He couldn’t even decipher the language. “Would you please-” he started, but she only raised her voice. “I’ve been exceedingly patient-” Louder still. “Excuse me!” She was suddenly very interested in the architecture of the ceiling. Ondolemar sighed, and nodded to the awaiting justiciar. He promptly replaced the gag.

Unperturbed, Alira hummed.


	5. Day Four

“Good morning.” Ondolemar greeted, hoping that if he insisted it to enough people, it would be true. The guard nodded respectfully as he took his seat. “How is she?”

“When attempting to remove the gag for lunch, sir, she bit down to prevent it.”

“So she hasn’t eaten today?”

“No, sir. Done nothing but hum.”

He glanced to the cat, then, who smiled. She was, indeed, humming.

“Try the gag.”

The justiciar reached down, untied, and the cat released happily. She was still humming a grand song he didn’t recognize, except... “Is that the same song as yesterday?”

The Khajiit made no mention, only continued to sing. It wasn’t a bad tune, in all honesty, strong, probably intended to be choral. He couldn’t identify a solitary word. “What language does that sound like to you?” he asked the guard.

He looked rather deer-in-torchlight to have his opinion recognized. “Nothing I know, sir?”

“A wild guess?”

“None, sir.”

Lot of help he was. Ondolemar couldn’t pick it out either, just strong, persistent consonants, a fiery accent. He didn’t recognize any of the words, but one did sound very similar to something she had Shouted at him. “...Is that Draconic?”

Her expression didn’t change, but her enunciation became harsher.

“Not to interrupt,” Ondolemar started, ripping a page from the dossier, “could you repeat that?”

The DragonBorn paused, and smiled.


	6. Day Six

_As the scrolls have foretold_

_Of black wings in the cold_

_As brothers wage war, come unfurled!_

_Alduin, bane of kings_

_Ancient shadow unbound_

_With a hunger to swallow the world!_

 

Their contact at the College of Winterhold provided the transcript of an ancient song praising the DragonBorn- which Ondolemar wasn’t surprised by; Alira was the most conceited person he knew, and that list included an excess of agents in the Dominion. The specific excerpt the Fourth Era DragonBorn had repeated read like prophecy. He scrawled notes in the margins.

He couldn’t see her in front of the guard, but her tail perked up as he entered. “I finally found a translation. I’m assuming you already know it.”

She glared out the corner of her eye, waiting for him to be properly settled so the guard would allow her to speak. She spit out the cloth the moment the knot came undone. “Smart man.” At his sneer, she corrected, “Mer. Pretentious elf.”

The justiciar behind her was reaching cautiously for the discarded cloth. The Khajiit snapped her head to the appendage, which retracted instantly.

Ondolemar snatched the cloth, and tossed it to him. “It’s nonsense. That song portrays Auri-El as some malevolent harbinger of end-times.”

Her smile dropped. “Do you believe everything The Alduin-Akatosh Dichotomy says?”

“That book is endorsed by every scholar in the White-Gold Tower. Therefore, yes.”

She looked very haughty, and very bored. “If every scholar told you to jump off a cliff-”

“Oh, how do you know!?”

The Khajiit tilted her head- and she _was_ a cat, with stripes and whiskers and angled-back ears, but the way she moved in that moment struck him as identifiably reptilian- as she leaned forward until her shoulders were pulled back to appease wrists bound to the armrests. “ _I_ am Akatosh’s _chosen_ , and I’ve _met_ Alduin.” She lounged back. “He’s the one that burned Helgen.”

The elf scribbled it out.

“You trusts books so much, I have one for you. Alduin is Real, by Thro-something. Find it. Read it. Then we’ll talk. Gag me.”


	7. Day Ten

Days stretched on in the cold keep, until he finally,  _ finally _ procured a copy of  Alduin is Real (and he ent Akatosh) \- which was undoubtedly the most poorly-written thing Ondolemar had the misfortune to read. He smacked it down on the table as he rounded it, with less malice than the tome deserved. “Why must you subject me to this?”

“Do you get it now?”

He wondered why she didn’t take the obvious opportunity to berate him, but wasn’t going to question it. “If Alduin isn’t Auri-El- or Akatosh, or whatever name Khajiit have for him-” she narrowed her eyes, but didn’t interrupt- “then who is he?”

“Alduin, just Alduin, destroyer of worlds, scourge of prehistoric Nords. I’m not a scholar, I’m the Dragonborn, and I’d really like to get back to Dovahkiin things.”

Ignoring the request, he inked the quill. “Could you provide a description of-”

“ **FUS!** ” 

Ondolemar grabbed the edge of the table, saving his chair from toppling backward. 

“I’m finding you unfitting of the title Less-Insufferable! Either release me, or feed me, because if I don’t eat soon, I won’t be here to answer any more of your dull questions!”

He glanced to the guard. “Has she not eaten today, either?”

“I’m not referring to a daily dose of protein!” she snapped, struggling at the shackles (and he would  _ swear _ he heard metal creaking). “I have  _ exceptional  _ dietary needs!”

“What is it, then?”

Jarring white eyes narrow, fangs gleaming- and admittedly, Ondolemar hadn’t seen that many Khajiit in his life, but he’d never before seen one with canine teeth that hung over their lips- she reminded him of a predator, and he felt very much prey. When she spoke, it was lowly. “It is taking all my energy not to rip open my own skin and empty you of every internal organ.”

Looking the way she did, he didn’t doubt she could. Moonstone gauntlets clicked against a leather-wrapped hilt as the justiciar awaited orders.

Alira didn’t look like a dragon. She wasn’t sharpening the consonants like a creature that knew the power they held, or shifting fluidly like a soul too large for the vessel it was spilling out of. She seemed like a different beast entirely, living happily within its skin.

There was something ancient in her, but not that old.

“Leave us.”

“...Sir?” the guard’s voice faltered.

Ondolemar didn’t have anything to fear. She liked him. “Go.”

Requiring no more coaxing, he stepped out, and the door hissed shut behind him.

Alira smiled, and he wondered exactly how much power she was containing.

He took a breath, choked on it, and tried again. “What are you?”

She shifted, her head tilting back and to the side while she rolled her shoulders, like a fight she didn’t expect much difficulty in. “It’s traditional to make you say it.”

He glared. She sighed. “V, A, M, P...”

Disbelievingly, “ _ Vampire? _ ”

“Oh, like you mean it.”

Affronted, Ondolemar withstood, “Vampires are terrifying and inhuman.”

“Are you saying I’m not?” 

“ _ Why _ would you-”

“Why wouldn’t I?” She eyed him through the corners. “Better I than the others chasing immortality.”

Ondolemar touched the back of his chair for grounding. The Khajiit sighed deeply. “Assuming you’re not interested in donating, there’s a bottle in my personals: short, gilded, hard to miss. Bring it to me, and all of your insides stay just that. Sound reasonable?”

The altmer didn’t respond, just quietly vacated the room. 

Moments later, the door swung open again. Alira held her lungs full.

Ondolemar splayed his hand around the base of the bottle, and swirled. Silvery crimson cycloned inside. “This is human blood, isn’t it?”

The Dragonborn examined her claws with distaste. “What else would it be?”

Ondolemar was an agent of the high elven Aldmeri Dominion- a Thalmor- trained in investigation and interrogation. Not particularly good in combat, but trained. He could do this.

He popped the cork, and held it as far from his body as his long arms would allow. He still smelled the copper. Alira looked at him, like a hunter, as he stepped cautiously closer. Surprisingly mannerly, she attached her lips to the mouth, and drank it down. He tried not to watch.

Alira threw her head back when she’d finished, and licked the corner of her mouth. Neatfreak he was, unconsciously, Ondolemar wiped a red spot from her chin that had not resided there previously. She had red spots all over her face, he could tell from this distance, faint, and scattered like freckles. She smiled, and it occurred to Ondolemar, he just got blood on his glove.

He corked the bottle, set it less-than-gently on the table, and stormed out.

“See you tomorrow?” she cast.

The door clanged shut.

The Dragonborn huffed, and crossed her legs. “...I’ll see you tomorrow.”


	8. Day Eleven

She hadn’t been gagged this time; any guard who attempted had been frozen solid. Icicles crashed to the floor when he opened the door.

Puffed up, Alira’s head swung around, ears flattened back. She softened when she saw him, and let them swivel forward. “I knew you couldn’t stay away.”

It wasn’t really a choice for Ondolemar, but he let her believe.

Alira glanced the room (cell, what have you). “...You slightly sufferable elf, are we alone?”

Inking his quill, he replied, “I thought I’d be safe enough without an escort. Was I mistaken?”

The Khajiit narrowed her eyes, and it was like that simple action released the beast inside of her. “Come closer.” she said, and without a thought- without rational hesitation, he did. “Closer.” she repeated. Feeling very apathetic, and very dull, he leaned until he hands were on her side of the table. She glanced his over with a detached judgement. 

“You have a lovely neck.” the vampire noted, cocking her head. He swallowed, but, thoughtlessly, his head titled back. “I could do gruesome things to a neck like that...” Then, slouching, she said, “Sit down.”

And, again, he did. They stared at each other from across the table until his senses came back to him. 

“If that didn’t make it clear,” she confided, while Ondolemar fingered his neck, “I have no intention to murder, enthrall, or otherwise injure your delicate body or mind.”

“Are you joking?” He leaned and tugged on her shackles. Besides raising a glare from the Khajiit, they didn’t budge. “I already have nightmares.”

“You should take that up with Vaermina,” the Dragonborn sighed, enduring as he checked all her restraints, “certainly not my fault.”

Crouched to ensure her ankles were held fast, the high elf heard her Shout. “ **FEIM!** ” He looked up, and found her only smiling. “I didn’t thank you for yesterday.”

“I’d rather not talk about it.”

“You didn’t let me finish, Slightly-Sufferable, dear.” She rested her chin on delicately curled fingers. “I was going to say that the Blades have nothing to do with the dragons’ return.”

Ondolemar rose, cautiously.

“They actually think you lot are responsible. I seem to be the only one at all knowledgeable on the situation.” Alira crossed her legs, one flashing high as it wrapped over the other. He’d  _ just _ been looking at that- and the shackles were still closed, just without her in them. “Do you really think a creature as old as that cares about your petty war? It’s not politics. This is the end of the world.”

The Thalmor swallowed as he backed to the far wall, and Alira stood as well.

“Now, I’m not so sure about you, but I’m partial to Mundus, and as the Dragonborn, the continued existence of the mortal plane seems to be my responsibility. I think I must be going.”

She twisted into a backbend, and Ondolemar quietly reached for his mace.

“ **ZUN!** ” she Shouted, and the weapon flew from his hand, lodging into the stonework wall behind him. “I wouldn’t, unless you’d like me to slaughter and skin all your coworkers,” Alira straightened up, “which can easily be arranged.”

Hands by his sides, but a shock spell in the back of his mind, Ondolemar questioned, “Why now?”

“The dragons? Oh, I don’t know. I think Alduin picked the date arbitrarily. World-eating’s good this time of year.”

“If you could always escape, why now?”

Brought willingly into a Thalmor keep, did you really think I was going waste time in a cell? I’m a busy Dovahkiin.” She took the dossier, idly, and flicked through the pages before folding it under her arm. “I would say the situation was enlightening for both parties, but I think I’ve exhausted your reading material. Also, I think one of your archers has a problem with brandy.”

“...I’ll make sure it’s looked into.” he reasoned.

“Be sure of it. I’ll want a challenge when I storm the keep.”

Then the Dragonborn smiled, and looked very haughty, and very scary, but she waved before slipping out.

There was a paralyze spell attached, but it’s the thought that counts.


End file.
